Poppy King is the make up maven behind Lipstick Queen so when I saw this Hall of Fame trio in the Space NK the Christmas sales I had to pick it up. The Lipstick Queen range is one that I am always swatching when I am beauty shopping but this was my first purchase from the range.
The Hall of Fame Trio are the best selling shades from the range. They are described as ‘universally flattering’ …hmmm. A bit like ‘one size fits all’ this may work for eighty percent of the population but often it does not work for me.
The first colour I tried from this trio is Jean Queen, which is said to your lips but better (who can resist that?) and the perfect pink to wear with denim. Ok, if you are wearing jeans, do you choose your lippie colour to go with your jeans or with your the other items you were wearing with your denim? Just a thought
With one swipe over the lips, I see very little colour. Two or three swipes later, some pink is desposited on the lips but to be honest it is not my perfect pink. It is a sheer pink/brown colour but it is not my lips but better. For me this is a tinted lip balm type of colour. It is ok, but no more then that. This is a great product for the car. It is easy to wear (as long as I remember to just wear one swipe) and does not need a mirror for perfect application. The finish is moisturising with a high sheen that does not leave the lips dry or tight. The texture of this colour is very soft and glides smoothly across the lips.
Butterfly Ball in Float is described as nude with a hint of turquoise to whiten the teeth. Sigh. Ok, well a universal nude is an oxymoron isn’t it? This nude shade does not work for me at all. I also don’t get flash of turquoise, it just looks like a silver frosted lippie. The texture is really soft and potentially it could cocktail over another more matte colour but I have gifted this one to a friend on whom it works better. The packaging of this lipstick differs from Jean Queen and Medieval as it has the NARS -esque rubberised finish rather then the metal casing. I really like the packaging of this lippie. It is really tactile, which means that it is easy to locate in a packed make up bag. The mechanism on this lipstick as with all of them is really smooth.
I had high hopes for Medieval – the red that it was claimed that anyone could wear. It is true – anyone can wear this colour but that is because it is so sheer. As with Jean Queen, an initial swipe give a lip gloss effect with a red tone rather then the pink of Jean Queen.
Overall I was a little disappointed with this trio because I really like my lip colour to make more of a statement. If you like a subtle look, these are definitely colours worth checking out. That said, I am very impressed with the formulations, no mineral oil, the textures and of course with Poppy King herself who is an amazing entrepreneur. I am currently reading her book, Lessons of a Lipstick Queen and loving it. I know that Poppy knows her way around a lippie but describing a shade as a universally flattering colour in my opinion is problematic. For those of us with very pigmented lips and deep skintones giving us a nude shade that would look amazing on Cate Blanchet just wont work for us. I do have a wishlist from this range, including the Vesuvius Liquid Lips and of course Velvet Rope so there will be more reviews from this brand later in the year.
